AI - AN AUTHOR'S THOUGHTS AFTER THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE BROKE THE META HEIST STORY. PART 2.

If you use AI to generate ideas for stories, you are not a writer. Similarly, if you need AI to rewrite your sentences and paragraphs, or restructure your book, or even produce any portion of a written work, then you're not a writer.

If, by some combination of keywords, the AI produces something that appears competent, you didn't create it; nor does this make you creative. The technology can only perform this function, at your prompting, because it has been illegally trained on the work of real writers. Tinkering with the output, editing it and rearranging it, doesn't make you a writer either. Every derivative produced was produced by the software, not you.

If you truly love books but use AI to make them, you are destroying what you love. And once you have destroyed what you love, what then?

Very few people master anything. To master anything, innate ability is required, as well as a significant investment of time and a sense of purpose. To be original, you also need vision. There are no shortcuts. Any other method is cheating. The constant promise of tech companies that their apps will "unleash your creativity" is a shameful lie. It's a heinous form of neo-Marxist propaganda. What this means is: no one is exceptional, everyone is the same, everyone is not only creative, but equally creative. Which any rational person knows is BS. There has only ever been one Shakespeare.

So, if you are taking shortcuts and cheating and destroying what you profess to love, what is your motivation? Laziness, self-deception, competitiveness, greed, uncertainty about what you are doing with your life? Or is it something malicious, like envy and resentment directed at those who have accomplished something - "look, what I can do too!" Only you're not creating anything - the software is producing something and you're cheating. What are you displacing?

Of equal importance to writers, in this catastrophe and in this entire space, are the readers. They're hard to attract. Their appearance and interest and appreciation is a magical process. Once they appear, they invite other readers to read the same books. To keep readers reading your books, you need to build trust with a readership and you can't let them down. This can take decades (in my case). It's a contract and connection so precious, it is sacrosanct. AI produced/part produced books betray and cheat readers and kill all of the magic. Forever.

So, folks, if you are using AI to "produce" books, or part produce books, you and I are done. It's over.

Every single time that someone cheats and uses AI to provide a story, or provide a character, or rewrite a description, another part of culture withers, another threat to human talent and expression is sent into the world. What we're then reading will not be truthful, not sincere, not genuine, not even human, and a betrayal of human endeavour.